RE: [docbook] DocBook: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

["Mauritz Jeanson" <mj@johanneberg.com>]

|  -----Original Message-----
|  From: Dick Hamilton 
|
|  Thanks for pointing out the Doc Requests in the tracker. I 
|  have resolved 
|  and closed all except 6 of the open requests in the 2nd Edition. The
|  ones that remain open are:
|  
|  1) Requests to add Simplified, Slides, and Website to the 
|  document. We
|  will probably add at least some mention of these variants, 
|  but I'm not
|  sure of the details, so I left them open.
|  
|  2) One request related to the errata page, which will need to be
|  addressed after publication.
|  
|  3) Two requests related to examples that still need investigation.


Hi Dick, 

I hope you don't mind me submitting some more comments. The comments apply
to the Rough Cuts version of TDG available on Safari Books Online (dated 19
Nov 2009).

* I think item 3) above definitely needs to be addressed. In the reference
part of the book, markup examples are still missing for many elements.
Having at least one representative example for every element would be very
valuable. 

* The element reference at http://docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/ has a "Parents"
section for each element with a list of all possible parents. This
information is not available in the Rough Cuts version. 

* The listings of Common Attributes and Common Linking Attributes are
missing (page 73). 

* The glossary contains several references to SGML and SGML practices that
are not relevant to DocBook 5. For example, see these entries: entity,
exclusion, inclusion, parameter entity, processing instruction. 

* The discussion about "pernicious mixed content" (page 167) is about SGML
parsers. AFAIK, this problem does not apply to XML and DocBook 5.

* Many bibliography entries under "Books and Printed Resources" in appendix
B (page 498) are garbled in some way.

* Appendix C discusses DTDs and SGML issues, but it says nothing about RELAX
NG schemas.

Mauritz